Let’s start with the obvious: No one actually knows the best path forward for the Democratic Party in 2024, and all options in front of us are bad. A second Biden term is seeming less and less likely, and Democratic voters and pundits like seem increasingly nervous that we’re marching to our own funeral. But the prospect of challenging an incumbent president just a few months before an election also seems hubristic and dangerous, especially when the Democratic Party is deeply divided, the vice president is unpopular and has been largely marginalized, and there is no obvious Plan B. The worst of all worlds seems to be a scenario in which Biden continues his campaign but the party mutinies and an ugly replacement battle fails at everything except mortally injuring an already weak candidate.
It is hard to overstate the stakes of this election. Joe Biden surely understands them as well. Which is why I hope that, in the aftermath of this debate, he is doing some serious soul-searching with his advisers, his colleagues, and the person he seems to trust most, his wife Jill.
The catastrophic debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump on Thursday was a wake-up call even for many Biden partisans that this president, for all the good he’s done in office, is struggling to make his case to the American people and does indeed come across as a struggling elderly man who may be kind and respectable but increasingly lacks the cognitive sharpness to hold the most powerful office in the world.
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At the same time, the threat of a second Trump presidency is enormous, far bigger than most Americans seem to grasp—Trump is scheming on a radical executive power-grab which could put everything from the Fed to control of the media in his hands, while he also promises vast human rights abuses, an end to a freedom-and-democracy-pursuing liberal international order, and a series of economic plans that would radically drive up prices and plunge the nation into financial free-fall. It’s no exaggeration to say that a second Trump presidency could mean everything from the termination of abortion rights nationwide, to deportation camps for immigrants, to the end of America as a beacon of economic and political stability, to the rise of global autocratic and imperialist power from Russia, China, and other dangerous actors.
Many Democratic voters are no doubt wishing that Biden hadn’t run again, and that a new candidate could have been selected months ago. But we can’t turn back the clock. And frankly, anyone who tells you they know the best way for Democrats to win is lying to themselves, to you, or probably both. Voters may not buy the argument that Trump is so dangerous they should support a man they believe to be cognitively unfit for the job, even if many of us believe it’s true (as I do) that Trump is uniquely dangerous, and also that Biden is slower but not actually incapable of carrying out the duties of the presidency. The case for Biden, at this point, hinges either on telling voters that what they’re seeing isn’t real—that Biden is fine and as sharp as ever—or that the stakes are so high they should simply ignore very obvious and troubling deficiencies. I hope voters are willing to do the latter, but it’s not exactly a compelling campaign slogan.
A replacement candidate selected at the convention also isn’t an easy solution, given that the Democratic Party is already profoundly divided, with many on its left flank threatening to pull their votes from Biden and protest the convention over Israel’s war in Gaza, while a farther-left candidate would be a non-starter for a great many moderates the party needs to beat Trump. There is no Bright Young Thing primed to swoop in, unite the left with the middle, and save the day. A weak and Balkanized party picking a late-stage replacement for a presidential candidate is a recipe for a bloodbath where everyone comes out badly wounded and politically hobbled.
This is simply a no-good very-bad place to be in.
In this sea of imperfect choices, though, we need a president who is willing to look hard at what is in the best interests of his party and the American people. And we need those around him to act not out of blind loyalty to a man they love and respect, but out of fealty to the American public—a choice that, thankfully, serves Biden’s interests as well. His choice to run again was understandable—he was mostly doing good and wanted to do more, and he’s a guy who has dreamed of being president his entire adult life—but also overconfident and wrong.
It's time for Biden’s inner circle to do the hardest things friends, colleagues, and loved ones can do: Intervene, knowing it will be tremendously hurtful to the person you care about. The needed interventionists include Biden’s long-time friends and advisers, including those closest to him in the White House; it includes his Democratic predecessors Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, both sharp political and strategic minds. And it must include his wife.
Jill Biden no doubt wants to salve her husband’s post-debate wounds, and may herself be in denial about how bad things are. But she does not seem like the kind of yes-honey spouse who contorts reality and herself to please her man. Unlike the last presidential family, the Bidens seem to have a marriage built on mutual respect and admiration; both seem to take each other’s counsel seriously. Joe’s choices are not Jill’s and vice-versa, and she is certainly far down the list of people to blame for the mess we’re collectively in. But she is in a uniquely influential position, and she does seem to be an intelligent, thoughtful, compassionate person who her husband listens to for a reason. Right now, we all need her to step up—not to tell her husband what to do, but to push him to really reflect on what is best for the country, and the hard choices that may be necessary to save it.
